A Muted City, Sunrise, Ambiance
quick visit to nyc, saturday sunrise, sick lighting
Everything feels muted in the city. Even the soup dumplings, this time, which I can’t believe I’m admitting. Am I employing a coping mechanism? Blocking out the ability to feel peak-level city pleasures, so I don’t get re-attached? It’s still surreal, like my life there never happened, like I made it all up, lived it all out in my head.
There was a moment that got me in my feelings for a second: walking around Canal St after dinner. It was the temperature. It reminded me of sitting on concrete blocks with skaters on cutty streets near the dollar beer spot. As we walked, then stopped and hung on a corner for a moment, the air was easy and made me feel weightless. Something precisely on the back of my neck perked up at the fleeting thought of caving to the hedonistic promise the night could hold, if we continued to wander around. Who could I run into? Who could provide thrilling distraction?
I miss having the option of brief acquaintances. People I’d run into or whose worlds I’d dip into momentarily cuz they’re always out. I know them through the city itself. A lot of varied, bold characters. Their upbringings far less predictable than the people I find myself recently surrounded by. I fed on their wildness for too long.
Quite regularly now I wake up as the sun rises. I watch it out of two windows, sometimes snapping pictures on my phone (a bad habit). I marvel at the light changing second by second. Deep orange-red darkness, becomes a thin layer of yellow that sweeps across the lightened blue sky. Jupiter glows brightly above. It’s a full moon tonight. I’m thinking of getting out there.
Yesterday afternoon I put a face of makeup on only to decide once the sun set my couch was the far better option. The ritual of putting on makeup was the activity I was perhaps after. This “being 40” thing is starting to take over my mindset. I feel my age which feels too old. I talked myself into a, What’s the point of going out? mindset again.
In bars in New York, the kids are young. I didn’t notice this a year ago. I was always out in younger spaces, surrounded by young faces (and probably pretending I wasn’t as old as I looked to them). It was easy to hide. I was used to being out at later hours and in darker spaces: nice bars, dive bars, restaurants, club spaces, music places.
Outside of a city, it’s like no one considers lighting. People overlook the wonders of vibe-setting in places that would benefit from more of it. New York is damn good at lighting-scheme ambiance. Here, it’s bright as shit. My nocturnal, New York eyes squint through dinner as wall-mounted TV screens push blue light around the room, under recessed lighting. I carry Pepcid AC on me now, so people won’t stare when my face flushes splotchy red with Asian glow, if I have an alcoholic drink.
Everything feels too bright, too “up to code.” There are times the dive bar sets the dimmer perfectly right, but they could also stand to take out an entire ceiling lamp above the bar, since the jukebox, rectangular, hard, boxy, alongside the Buckhunter, emits enough unforgiving white light to keep that whole side of the bar bright.